Broken Glass

Today's blog is about creativity, entrepreneurship and the desire to find solutions to business problems- all the while making a difference to society.

Once upon a time there was an entrepreneur who opened up a glass recycling plant, but he couldn't get enough people to drop off their bottles and he couldn't get enough end users to take the bottles unless the glass was broken.

David Belt, an entrepreneur from Brooklyn NY faced this exact problem. He solved it by creating a project called "Glassphemyl", a psychological recycling experiment.

His idea was to make recycling a more direct visceral experience and to purge some aggression simultaneously. He did this by building and installing a 20 x 30 ft clear box with high walls made of steel and bullet proof glass.

People stand on high platforms at one end of the box and a low platform on the other end of the box. Those on the higher platform take empty glass bottles and just chuck 'em into the box- aiming, perhaps at their compatriots on the other side who are safely outside of the box. The bottles smash and artfully designed lights flash, music is played and no one is harmed.

"Recycling is boring", says David Belt. "Besides people just want to smash things", he says.

Patrons agree. One unidentified man said "You don't realize how deeply satisfying this is when you get up there with a bottle in your hand. I think it serves as a kind of therapy."

What ever it is, Mr Belt has solved two business problems. One, he gets local bars and restaurants to donate bottles and, secondly, he gets free labor to smash his bottles which will ultimately be sold to the end user, all the while providing a customer experience (albeit free) that is just plain old fun. The broken glass can then be used for new art creations, lamps, or by pulverizing the glass, sand can be made.

What can we learn from this?

1. That even far out ideas deserve to be tried. What about an old pins smashing contest (out in the parking lot) where patrons can throw old baseballs at old bowling pins for free? Everybody gets free games or kids can do it as part of their birthday parties - especially in summer.

2. Maybe, as we have always suspected, bowling does provide people with an "outlet for aggression" and by projecting pictures of people on the pins, we could get more customers to give bowling a try. Kind of a "beat your boss day" or knock down your Ex!

3. Doing something different that helps the environment may not be all that bad of an idea, especially when it involves local businesses who can talk about why they feel that taking care of the environment is important to their community.

4. Ideally, this type of activity will be picked up on the web and people will talk about your center; you will build a relationship with new people; and you and your customer will have some fun with this.

And isn't having fun what the customer experience needs to be all about?

p.s. Since last August when I started this blog, I have posted 101 blogs. Mathematically that's approximately 12 blogs per month and as we said when we first started, it is an "almost daily" blog. In any case, if you have missed any of the blogs, you can always scroll back and read them at your leisure...if you choose.

Or if you would like to be removed from this list, please email me at fredkaplowitz@gmail.com.

Thank You

Are You Wowing Your Customers?

We're all working harder these days. Some of us are even working smarter. But what we lack, in general, is a bit of the "wow" factor. Sure our fliers have gotten a little more professional and we're paying attention to customer service a bit more too, but what are we doing every day to stimulate new business, retain business and "wow" these folks when they come in.

Here are a few WOW ideas that my brain came up with that you might want to try.

1. Car Wash. Once a night pick out a customer (at random) and get the customer's car washed or give him a certificate for a free car wash. Surprise, surprise.

2. Thank all of your open play bowlers one night with a small box of candy or other treat. Surprise surprise.

3. Fund a charity. Send an email to your bowlers to come in an open play bowl on a Saturday night. Tell them for every dollar they spend, 10% will go to a "local" charity. Surprise, surprise.

4. Roses for Mom. When a child has his birthday with you, give Mom 6 roses as a thank you fro having her child's party at your center. That's a wow. Think she'll tell a few people about that. Surprise, surprise.

5. Who thanks League Secretaries? Give all of them a restaurant gift certificate for $25. We can get you one for about $5 and its valid at local restaurants in your area, no strings attached. drop us an email at fredkap@verizon.net and we'll send you some info on it. Surprise, surprise.

6. Greet the customer. It's a busy Friday or Saturday night in season and your front desk people are slammed. So who is making the NEW customer feel more than just welcome? Why not hire a greeter for those busy nights to welcome customers, visit them on the lanes and thank them for their patronage and, oh yes, "here are some short season programs you might be interested in and how about filling out our data base card?" Surprise, surprise.

7. Make some magic. Hire a magician during weekend day time open play and have them go lane to lane and do a few tricks. It's entertaining, parents will remember it and kids will love it which will make the parents want to come back again...'cause the kids will bug them to return! Surprise. surprise.

As the old saying goes, if you can't be better (and I'm not saying that you are not) at least be DIFFERENT!

7 Steps to Increasing Your E mail Open Rate

Of late, all the marketing talk is about social media, Email, Facebook, My-space, Yelp, Twitter. The list goes on and on. It seems that new ways to communicate with your audience spring up almost every hour. Left in the lurch are traditional media outlets like cable TV and radio. Some proprietors have abandoned these communication vehicles entirely, relying instead on social media to bring home the message.

Is that right? Should we abandon these forms of communication completely? I don't think so.

In several case studies, where I have added or subtracted radio and or TV to to the mix, I discovered time after time that when I ADD radio or TV to my social media campaign I get a greater "open rate" on my emails and a greater click through. Normally, less than 15% of your email gets opened. Some pundits claim it is down to less than 10%. By adding TV or radio, I get my open rate up to 30% or even 400%

But the trick is in the timing. Here's an example. Let's say you want to promote your cosmic bowling on Friday and Saturday night.

1. I send an email out on Wednesday to my 18 to 34 yr olds telling them of a special weekend offer I.e, Bring a friend and the friend bowls at half price or Bring 5 people per lane and get a free pizza or any offer you can think of.

2. I run my radio schedule or cable TV schedule from Wednesday to Friday, about 35 to 40 spots across 4 or 5 networks like MTV, Cartoon Network, Spike TV, ESPN2 or any other network in your market that may index highest against the target audience (Your media rep can show you these indexes.)

3. I run these spots in the 4pm to midnight time period. I also ask for lots of $1 spots between midnight and 2am. This 18 to 34 audience stays up late!

4. I communicate the same offer on TV as I do in in my email, but the call to action is to go to the website and print out the coupon. If I am using radio, I try to buy AM drive and PM drive for these three days as well. Sure it costs more, but I am reaching a bigger audience MORE FREQUENTLY. And frequency is key. Some stations may have bigger audiences during the 10a to 3p slot and that becomes an attractive time period to buy radio because the price per spot could be as much as 40% to 50% less, yet the audience is only 25% less. Just make sure that the media rep can prove this to you over a series of ratings data that has been audited.

5. On Friday I send out a Facebook notice to all of my Facebook friends telling them of the same offer, attaching a coupon and asking them to pass it along to their friends.

6. On Friday, I also ask my employees to send the same message to their Facebook friends saying there is a special offer and if they go to our center's website they can get the special coupon as well.

7. When people come into the center on Friday and Saturday night and, if I still have lanes open, I ask my customers to call or text their friends and invite them to fill up a lane of 4 or more people. If their friends come in to bowl, I buy pizzas for the new friends and for the people at the center who called or texted their friends. To get $100, I will spend $7 on pizza costs!

By using this 7 step method for two or three weeks, I build a layered approach that has a better potential of reaching my target audience multiple times than just one email.

Try it; yes it is more expensive, but in many instances I have doubled my results. I hope you do too!

A Success Story

This comment was one of many I received today, but I wanted to share this one with you.

Brian Myer wrote: " After 1 of your posts I made a concerted effort to launch a Facebook page. With the help of my wife, I am sitting at over 600 friends in just over 2 weeks. I am seeing the opportunity and immediacy of this vehicle. Now I need to follow thru or continue as you say. Good info.

Brian,
Legacy Lanes
Monticello, Ia.
May 2, 2010 6:57 PM

I think its so cool when my subscribers work on some of the information I distribute. Brian and his wife actively created a facebook page and after two weeks, just 2 weeks, he has over 600 friends. Now as he says, "he has to follow thru".

We want Brian to follow thru by building strong relationships with his friends, telling them about all the good things his center does for the community and how he is active in his hometown.

From there he can talk about his fund raisers, his team building bowling parties, post testimonials and you tube videos and then start to talk about how his open play programs are designed for companies, families or couples or whomever. Build your strategy Brian, then think "continuance". Thank you for your comments.

Continuance

i put up a facebook page, TheKaploeMarketingGroup.com, and have had some interesting experiences. Within 3 days I had 40 friends and within a week I had 69 friends. It was pretty quick. I am sure I could get more friends if I decided to do some "internet marketing" For one, I could put up a facebook ad and establish a budget of how much I want to spend. You can too for your facebook page. Just go to www.facebook.com/ads

Or i could do some back link programming by going to "noblesamurai.com" There is a whole process that will help you to optimize your site and it is relatively easy to follow.

All these tools are out there for your use and all it takes is a little initiative and a little patience. Hey, this stuff isn't rocket science, but sometimes it feels like you are learning a new language. Don't worry. You'll get the language down. After that it is a question of "continuance."

Continuance is your ability to:

1. Define what your Internet marketing goals are and then systematically going about how to do that on a continuing basis

2. Make certain that you always have something new to say or report or promote or, better yet, information you want to impart to your customer that build a relationship with him.

3. Continually learning new ways to link to your customer. This takes reading, study and a curiosity to make it happen. Sure, you can hire someone to do this, but you'll be continually out of the loop and won't learn anything new. and what if your computer guru gets hit by a bus? where are you the?

4. Fight the urge to not do anything; to chalk it up to "i don't understand it, so why bother"?

Continuance is the key.

Remember, its the journey, not the destination that makes the ride meaningful.

How to Sell Anybody Anything

Here are four rules for selling your product; whether its bowling, billiards, swimming pools or soda

1.Be different and then make sure you can prove it. If you offer something that everyone else does at a cheaper price, your competitors will probably meet or go under your price, at least for the short term. Being different doesn't mean being the cheapest guy on the block.

2.People can spot a fake from a mile away. Don't oversell yourself. People know when it's too good to be true and when it's real. If you over promise and under deliver, you now have a foot with a bullet in it. Under promise and over deliver.

3. Go above and beyond. You would no doubt be surprised to find out how many of your competitors do less than what the customer expects. In fact, they probably do nothing. Have a sense of professionalism; understand your customer better than the other guys. By understanding their expectations, you can set a benchmark and then learn how to exceed it.

4. Do more research. When was the last time you asked your customers and perspective customers what they really want or at least offered them a choice of different options from which to provide you feedback. If you haven't, then you are dealing with hearsay information and that's always dangerous.

So be safe... and go sell something.

Tell a Good Story

Marketers are supposed to be good story tellers, but rarely do they use their acumen to tell a story to the customer. Instead they stand on the hoods of cars and scream, "best value, best price." This version is just one of the stories that marketers can tell, but it is rarely the most effective for the audience you are trying to target.

Think about the 21 to 34 year old single market. Or for that matter, the 13 to 20 yr old market. Is best price, best value the best story you can tell? Why not tell a story of people who bowled at the center. Maybe its the local football hero, basketball jock, scholarship winner, president of company X or a media personality?

Telling people about "look who is bowling with us" gives your center an aura of "coolness" and is yet another version of the stories you can tell.

Or you can tell the story of the fund raiser you ran and how it saved someone's life or at least was able to help support a specific cause. People like to know that the people they do business with, or are considering doing business with, have a sense of community and a sense of moral fortitude. Now isn't that a good story to tell, especially if one of your customers tell it.

This is the kind of stuff to put on your facebook page; to send to your fans or to email to people. No, it doesn't directly sell, but it sure as heck establishes credibility of your business as a "good place" to go. And that's something that is much harder to prove in print, radio or TV.

Now start, "once upon a time...."